PHILADELPHIA — Trying to pry a megabucks contract out of the Eagles can be brutal for veterans rocking the other side of 30 years old.

Then there is Jason Peters.

The Eagles on Wednesday signed the 32-year-old veteran to a five-year, $51.3 million deal including $19.55 million guaranteed, according to agent Vincent Taylor.

Peters, a five-time All-Pro, thinks he can be as productive the next five seasons as he is now.

“And they obviously think so, or they wouldn’t have given me the contract if they didn’t,” Peters said. “I’m going to definitely live up to it.”

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Eagles general manager Howie Roseman called the action “an important statement to our football team and our players about what we’re going to be about.”

Peters, however, is unlike any Eagles player. He’s been more than worth the price the Eagles paid to get him. The club shipped three draft picks, including a first-rounder to secure him from the Buffalo Bills in 2009. They also handed him a ton of money.

“This is a unique situation when you’re talking about Jason Peters and his level of excellence, his level of play,” Roseman said. “It’s hard to turn on the tape and look at him as a 31-year-old offensive tackle. You look at him and you see him dominate players. He still has upside in his body because of the things that we’re doing and the offensive scheme that we’re in. Understand all those questions but for us this is about the player. And Jason Peters has defied all odds. He’s a unique player.”

Peters, by the way, played at his usual all-star level last season despite a broken finger that made his left hand almost unusable and required offseason surgery. Moreover, he bounced back from not one but two surgeries for a torn Achilles’ tendon the previous year.

“He’s got a chance to be a Hall-of-Fame-type player in an Eagle uniform,” Roseman said. “When we saw his first year back from that injury and just knowing that he continued to get better in this offense and in this scheme. With his work ethic and determination, he’s a guy that can really defy all the odds. … He’s a unique player. There’s not many men on this Earth who are as physically talented as he is.”

If Peters flames out the Eagles are protected. But the Eagles have seen no signs of that. What they see is a happy player.

Peters kept talking about wanting to retire with the Eagles during his availability at the NovaCare complex. He loves the area. He recently bought a house over the Walt Whitman Bridge in South Jersey.

Peters thinks the Eagles, after capturing the NFC East pennant with a 10-6 record, are “very close” to taking a giant step.

“We were close this year,” Peters said. “Came up a little short in the playoffs. Didn’t anybody really know about us. We took the league by storm. Now they know. Now we know who we are. And we’re going to take this year not for granted and work hard from Day One.”

Peters’ agent said there were “soft talks” with the Eagles before the 2013 season and that the discussion “heated up” near the scouting combine. Peters wanted security and peace of mind.

“He can go out knowing that if something happens on the field, he’s taken care of financially,” Taylor said. “The second thing is it gives you peace of mind knowing that, ‘Hey, I’m here.’ Those are the benefits.”

For Taylor, the biggest issue doing the deal was the lack of comparable contracts. After all, it’s pretty much a young man’s league.

“We had nothing to work off of,” Taylor said. “So we talked to the NFLPA today, and they said that’s the highest guarantee for any O-lineman 32 years old or above. So we just had to look at it. It’s almost like the pink elephant. What is it worth to you? It may not be worth much to the next person, but what is it worth to you? And they felt like, ‘Hey, that’s what it’s worth to us.’”

Ultimately, Peter got security and the Eagles got some more cap room … as if they need another $2 million this year to add to their bundle. The Eagles have around $20 million of room to move on to the next step, which could be extending the contract of center Jason Kelce, in the final year of his rookie pact.

That said, Roseman said he would select an offensive lineman in the first round of the NFL draft with the 22nd pick, if that’s the highest-rated player on the board when the Eagles are on the clock. In addition to paying Peters, the Eagles selected offensive tackle Lane Johnson with the fourth pick in the 2013 draft.

“If the best player is at whatever position, and they’re the highest-ranked player on our board, we’re going to take him,” Roseman said. “For us, the way we look at offensive line is we want five really good starters left to right.”

At this point for the Eagles, money obviously isn’t an issue. Not after the interesting yet relatively safe guarantee paid Peters, one of the first veterans to buy into Chip Kelly’s healthy approach to football.

“I think it negates a lot of commonly held facts about us,” Roseman said of the signing. “That you hit a certain age, and we’re not going to keep you. That if you are paid a certain amount that we’re not willing to pay that to keep you. We are going to keep … try to keep, obviously it takes two to tango … our best players. And the guys that we feel are part of our culture and that fit well into the chemistry of our football team on and off the field. It’s an important message for us this offseason.”